


On the Shoulders of Giants

by albatrost



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/F, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-11 00:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15303306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albatrost/pseuds/albatrost
Summary: It felt like years had passed since that chestnut hair had spilled across her pillow. It felt like years had passed since the last time she had brushed her fingers along the smooth underside of that arm, delicately tracing the bruises, swollen from the sharp thwack of the bowstring against her skin.Mikasa entertains the idea of building a life for herself with Sasha after the war, and ruminates on what could have been.(WARNING:Major manga spoilers up to Chapter 106.)





	On the Shoulders of Giants

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tribute to some of my favorite girls. (And also debatably a coping mechanism, after the events of chapter 105).
> 
>   
> (The artwork based off of this fic is by foxy!  
> Tumblr: https://shinyfoxy.tumblr.com/tagged/doodles  
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/shiny_foxy)

It was the happiest they’d been in weeks, and it showed. Sure, it was a tentative and transient happiness, about as bockety as an old carriage wheel, but it was happiness nevertheless. Or at the very least, something that felt similar. Perhaps it was just the relief that comes in the wake of great loss—the exhaustion and misery and guilt and sweet giddiness of survival, even at the cost of tens of soldiers, a couple of friends, and a commander’s right arm. No one left the battlefield happy, but beneath the sadness and self-reproach, everyone was somewhat grateful to have left it at all.  


More likely still, this cheerful mood could be due to a glimmer of hope. Eren had cried out, fists swinging and distraught eyes burning with tears, and the titans had listened. They followed him. The key to all they had sought for so long may very well lie in Christa’s—no, _Historia’s_ —bloodline; the answers had been surging through her veins all this time. Even in such precarious and regrettable circumstances, they could feel it on the wind. A tide was turning.  


If nothing else, it was the small comfort of having a roof over their heads, warm beds to nestle in, and warm meals to share. The familiarity of joking and chattering and bickering in a house filled with people you hold dear. The tucked-away impression of safety, regardless of what truth it belied. Just like trainee days, Sasha had said.  


Maybe a little too similar to their trainee days, in fact.  


“Sasha, don’t sleep.” Mikasa softly tugged the brunette’s ponytail, earning a startled grunt in response.  


The other girl jolted off Mikasa’s shoulder, glancing about with half-peeled lids, before rubbing her eye with a fist and murmuring, “Wasn’t…”  


“I think you may have had too much for dinner,” Mikasa replied. Her tone had an air of fond exasperation, not terribly unlike Connie or Jean’s teasing and scolding. “It makes you drowsy, you know.”  


Sasha was suddenly more awake the moment her meals came under fire. “Huh? No, it was only one helping, honest!” she insisted, eyebrows slanting up in the center. An endearing expression. Her tone turned slightly more defeated as she sighed, “Really, you should have seen Armin portioning out the rations we have. Scheduling and writing up a whole system. He’d run a mean military budget, for sure.”  


Mikasa hummed nonchalantly, “And to think Armin was just complaining to me about having less than expected in the crates for our supply inventory…”  


“They shorted us? Shameful.”  


“…Sasha, I saw him pulling bread out of your bag.”  


“He got all of it back!” She paused, before mumbling under her breath, “…as far as he knows.”  


Mikasa stifled a smile in her scarf.  


It was certainly far too early to be sleeping, particularly for a soldier on guard duty for the night shift. Although the sun had nearly slipped past the horizon, the sky still glowed in the soft and hazy tones of dusk. The pair sat on the top of a cliff overlooking the house. The arrangement was ideal—the staggered, rolling foothills, pocked with deep ravines, provided the perfect cover for hideaway houses and titan shifters alike. Despite being submerged in the shadow of the hills, the house was still bustling with lively chatter at this hour, and even at this distance the girls could make out the occasional burst of raucous laughter. Mikasa turned her eyes up towards the lavender clouds and darkening sky, sun setting behind her, and listened over time as the voices grew fainter, drowned out by a lulling chorus of cicadas. The two girls were bathed in the honeyed light, soaking up the warmth of the sun’s last rays, but the evening chill was already settling in.  


“Would you like some?” Sasha offered, and Mikasa turned to glance at her companion. She had just finished unscrewing the top of a silver flask, and took a quick swig. Mikasa contemplated asking her where she had gotten that, but thought better of it. Sasha held it out to her, commenting, “Just a bit’ll keep you warm. It’s good for staying alert, too.”  


“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Mikasa countered plainly. She took a sip anyways.  


In moments the gulp of liquor had done as promised, warmth branching out through her veins. It wasn’t quite drinking on the job—Mikasa wouldn’t dare. She highly doubted that the Garrison regiment stationed in Shiganshina would have been any more successful that day if they had been sober—nothing could have prepared them for that caliber of chaos—but god, didn’t it make it worse to see the people’s supposed protectors stumbling around useless, a bunch of bug-eyed drunkards amidst the slaughter?  


A sip or two wasn’t incapacitating. It was only enough to let her release the breath she’d been holding, to feel the blood buzzing in her veins like a rich swallow of frothy champagne. It was a heady warmth and a fair ending to a cheerful day and, hopefully, a sip or two would help these feelings stretch until morning. She and Sasha talked a little as the hours passed, at first leaning on one another, back to back. After a while, Mikasa’s rib fracture began to smart (exactly as Armin had worried it would—he had urged her not to take watch duty tonight and rest instead, but she had never been easy to bargain with). With a soft huff and another swig to ease the pain, she opted to lay her back against a nearby tree trunk, and Sasha had nestled in beside her, shoulder to shoulder. Admittedly they were at a disadvantage if someone came from behind the tree, but they were high enough up that the entire house was in sight, and they agreed that that was what mattered.  


Mikasa didn’t notice as it happened, but at some point Sasha had nodded off again, face buried in her shoulder. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and she decided she would let Sasha have an hour or so. The brunette’s breath fanned softly across her throat. Even and steady. Sasha had always squirmed in her sleep, and Mikasa wasn’t surprised to find an arm tossed across her stomach, legs shifting closer and drawing up over her own. What did surprise her, however, was that she found herself curling into Sasha’s warmth as well. She bent back easily into this evening of youthful banter, into the familiarity of a trusted comrade’s warm body pressed to her own, into this feeling that was just a hair’s breadth away from safety.  


All at once, Sasha lurched in her sleep, body coiling tense and tight, and against her jaw, Mikasa felt Sasha’s brows cinch together in a pained expression. Rather than wake her—and perhaps without even thinking about it—Mikasa’s hand moved reflexively to the top of her forearm. Her fingers stroked back and forth soothingly, wrist to elbow. It was the same way her mother would stroke the knots from her dark, silky hair as she sat in her lap as a child, root to tip. It was the same way she used to slowly stroke Eren’s hair sometimes, after the fall of Maria; certainly, a lot of their interactions were less than gentle (with no less love or well-meaning behind them), but he wasn’t averse to the comforting touch, particularly when he had been younger. She mused on that a bit, continuing to swirl her fingers in those antsy patterns, long after Sasha had relaxed.  


She was slow to pick up on the change in Sasha’s breathing—too slow, really, and maybe that drink had muddled her thoughts after all—but she noticed all at once that the soft whistle of her feather-light snores had tapered off, and Sasha was awake. Her fingers never stopped their ministrations, and Sasha never moved, the two of them balanced in a precarious but oddly tranquil limbo. Neither spoke, but not for fear; a single word may be all it took to make them feel the bizarreness and novelty of this closeness, to make them untangle from one another with flushed cheeks, but what a shame it would be, when they would both be so content to stay. Even if they weren’t thinking about how unusual the closeness was, it was hard not to become more and more aware of the closeness itself, of the presence and pressure and blistering heat of their bodies. Despite the chilled night air nipping at the rosy tips of their noses, the heat in their uniforms was enough to draw sweat, and it was wholly uncomfortable and paralyzing and delicious all at once. The tracing patterns of Mikasa’s fingers, which had coaxed drowsy tingles along the base of Sasha’s skull, suddenly made her hairs stand on end, and every part of her body pressed against Mikasa seemed to grow warmer. And for some reason, the deeper she breathed in the other girl’s scent, and the more snugly she pressed against her, the closer she needed to be, host to some powerful, tight-chested, clenched-jaw urge she had never felt before. Tentatively, she disturbed the peace, lifting her head. It was done with all the feather-footed grace and hesitation of a hunter pursuing a doe through the underbrush. Mikasa felt lashes flutter against her jawline. A bitter wave of yearning washed over her momentarily once she felt the cold night air strike the place where the weight of Sasha’s warm head had been resting, but it was short lived as she realized Sasha was facing her, even closer than before, and she felt her heart practically rattle in her ribcage.  


She leaned down, such that her nose nudged against Sasha’s. Her gaze fixed on those dark hazel eyes, glinting wet in the starlight, and she felt herself magnetized; no matter how deeply they were intertwined, how flush they pressed to one another, it still didn’t seem close enough. Both of them inched closer, agonizingly slow—they didn’t want to frighten off the other with what they wanted, or maybe they weren’t entirely sure what they wanted themselves. Either way, after what seemed like ages of mingling breaths and shallowly heaving chests and fingers curled into fabric—of warmth and excitement coiling in their bellies and lips dry with anticipation—Sasha closed the gap.  


It was a chaste, open-eyed kiss, soft as a flutter of moths’ wings—so light that Mikasa would barely have believed it was there, if she hadn’t seen it happen. Their bottom lips stayed pressed gently together, and Sasha’s mouth was so soft and wet and open and inviting. And Mikasa knew what she wanted.  


Her hand drifted from its perch on Sasha’s arm to clasp at the back of her neck, fingers rooted in the soft baby hair at the base of her skull, and pulled her in for a deeper kiss. She felt the surprised hitch of breath in Sasha’s chest, before she melted into Mikasa’s embrace with a low sound that reverberated in her throat. It was inexperienced and curious and hungry, but slow enough to be savored. Mouths pressed flush as tongues delved past lips, slowly lapping up breathy sounds. Wandering hands and bodies that began to rock ever so slightly. Mikasa tugged Sasha’s bottom lip, sucking it gently into her mouth before letting it go with a tender pop, breaking the kiss. Her lids fluttered open for long enough to catch a glimpse of Sasha’s cheeks, smattered red with exertion, and her parted lips, blush-pink and glistening—before Sasha dove forwards again, more confident this time as her lips enveloped Mikasa’s own. Mikasa’s hand drifted from where it was bunched in her jacket, sliding down the small of Sasha’s back, slipping delicately over the curve of her spine, to rest on the sliver of exposed skin above her white jeans. Hot skin singed icy fingers and something changed.  


Sasha swung a leg over Mikasa’s and straddled her, still holding the kiss, settling square in her lap. She felt the heat at the front of Sasha’s jeans and it suddenly made her mouth dry. It wasn’t something Mikasa had ever really taken the time to think about—any of it. Yet for some reason now, overwhelmed in touch and taste, in scent and sight and sound, the mere thoughts sent a shiver through her. She wondered if it was something Sasha had thought about before. Her mouth had stopped moving in her shock, and Sasha had taken the opportunity to brush her lips from Mikasa’s mouth to her jaw. She began planting wet, hot kisses along the side of her throat, and Mikasa’s head thumped hard against the tree behind her, a shaky moan leaving her lips. A white-hot tremor ran down her spine, heat swelling in her groin, as Sasha licked and slurped at the sensitive skin there—and oh, Sasha _must_ have thought about this before.  


To be fair, Mikasa had never questioned the other girl’s feelings for her. She hadn’t necessarily assumed they went beyond the years of fondness and friendship due to shared circumstance, or the trust and respect you’d instill in a fellow comrade, or the admiration she was accustomed to receiving from other recruits for her skill, or the gratitude one extended after having one’s life saved. And truthfully, maybe it was no more than that, just brought to a head by youthful hormones and teenage recklessness and the type of desperation that emerges in soldiers who are always a day away from their deathbed.  


She caught herself hoping it wasn’t.  


Sasha buried her lips in the crook of Mikasa’s pale neck. Breath ghosted across the strong tendons of her neck in soft bursts, tongue lapping and laving against the sinews of her throat, and it was all Mikasa could do not to writhe at the sensations. That tongue dipped into the hollow of her throat, planting more lovely and sloppy kisses across her skin as she moved toward her collarbone. Her fingers lifted, quivering slightly, and hesitated at the buttons of Mikasa’s shirt. That self-assuredness waned rapidly, but before Sasha could pull away, Mikasa’s hands swiftly reached up and undid the first few buttons with some degree of desperation, shrugging the shirt off of her shoulders. Sasha’s spit was cold on her flesh but her mouth was so hot, and she felt her skin tingle along the trail of kisses she had left, fresh and electric. Her body bucked slightly, and she lifted a thigh to press and grind against the crotch of Sasha’s jeans. She relished in the muffled whimper against her chest, felt Sasha’s thighs clench tightly around her own. The brunette kissed with thirst and vigor, moving lower, lower, fingers curling over the open neckline of the shirt and pulling it down, lips sweeping over her breast and enveloping a nipple—and Mikasa clapped a hand over her mouth at the embarrassingly loud sound that left her lips, tapering off into a whimper as she leaned into Sasha’s motions. As Sasha sucked softly, rolling the rough buds of her tongue against it, Mikasa arched abruptly. She hissed sharply through a clenched jaw at her own sudden motion, hand scrabbling to clutch at her ribs, and Sasha jerked backwards. Tentatively, Sasha lifted a hand to Mikasa’s own, pressed over the bandages, and concern knotted her brow. Mikasa glanced up and held eye contact, sucking in breaths through her teeth.  


And, with more boldness and shamelessness than she had any right to, but which hardly surprised Mikasa, Sasha whispered to her.  


“Lay down.”  


* * *

Mikasa liked that Sasha was an open book, in all of her unabashed candor. She smelled and felt and looked like where she came from—sounded like it as well, if you were able to catch the pluck and drawl of her accent, whether in a brash fit of laughter or a giddy bout of fear. That mountain twang which cracked on the end of her words like a whip, which she had once tried so hard to hide. She liked the way Sasha smiled at her in the bright and blustery summer evenings, with squinting, earnest eyes. The way the sunshine caught the red in her hair, how the wind and light whipped up a fiery halo behind her. She liked that the sunlight did the same in the forest, pouring unbidden through the lush canopy overhead and dappling Sasha’s head with glints of auburn.  


Mikasa liked how, even after a long day of training, even beneath the comforting and familiar scent of sweat and warmth and linen pillowcases, she thought she could still smell something earthy in her hair, something like petrichor or fresh-chopped wood. She liked how it made her heart twinge something bittersweet—the smell of summer monsoons in the mountains, after the roiling clouds and thunder had passed, and the thickets glistened with raindrops and the world seemed so fresh and renewed and _alive_ —and Mikasa had never been to Dauper village, but she felt like she had. She could hear the sharp thwack of the wooden bow’s string as she gingerly traced along the underside of Sasha’s arm, smoothing the pads of her fingers over the raised contusions on the inside of her elbow, still swollen from the sinewy snap of bowstring against her skin. She could feel the numbness give way to a sweet and blistering burn as she swept her fingertips tenderly against old bruises, the aubergine blotches fading to yellow. She could taste the fresh strawberries on her lips, picked from the garden outside her cabin—small and tart, more bitter than the berries Mikasa had grown in her own parents’ garden, but mouthwatering nonetheless. They were clearing the forests and raising new buildings and rearing horses now, Sasha said defeatedly, almost ruefully, but no matter what changed, it would always be her home.  


Mikasa could feel calloused hands cupping her face, brushing her hair softly from her cheek—and took solace in their roughness. Found peace and reassurance in their learned and practiced feel, weathered and worn from horses’ reins and the handles of paring blades. In sparring matches with Annie—the only hand-to-hand combat opponent that stood a chance against her, and the only one, if she was honest, that she relished in throwing to the ground—Mikasa recalled being stunned by the peculiar softness of those hands. Annie would clasp her wrist, prepared to twist her arm and move seamlessly into a hold, and for a moment, Mikasa would almost hesitate. Those palms, so hot and perfectly smooth, even though she had just seen them skidding and scraping raw against the ground. Steamed-pink and fresh, like a brand new layer of skin, and Mikasa was none the wiser.  


Mikasa should have known.  


She couldn’t have really, given the circumstances, but that didn’t stop her from thinking about it. From dwelling on the lives lost in the scramble and the panic and helplessness, from remembering how her comrades clambered and skittered about frantically, ants beneath the female titan’s heel. From remembering the gut-wrenching, hollow-chest feeling as she watched Eren snapped up in Annie’s jaws. Ruefully, she looked back on their first spar in that dusty, sunbaked courtyard—recalled how delighted she was to discover that, beneath that cold and careful countenance, Annie burned hot like the rest of them. As she pushed her further, pressed harder, struck faster, strained her body until they both dripped with sweat—as she began to surpass her—she remembered as fear began to paint the blonde’s features. A desperation as plain as day, a wide-eyed grimace telltale of hidden guilt. On the day that the female titan plummeted from the wall, when Mikasa had sliced through the trunk-sized bones of her fingers as smoothly as if they were butter, when she alighted upon her face like an angel of death and sealed her fate, she had seen it again, and in a nauseating and almost regrettable way, it was satisfying. Annie had never deceived her.  


The same wasn’t true for the rest of the 104th, Sasha included.  


Kind and compassionate Sasha, who cried for Annie and Reiner and Bertholdt, who was good. She had never demanded their motives, nor needed to know what they had suffered through in order to become what they had. She didn’t need to cross the ocean to see proof of their hardships or humanity for herself. They were people she had trusted and loved, despite what they had taken from her, and she grieved for them all the same. She grieved even as she kept her weapons trained on them, even as she refused to forgive, chin quivering and eyes wet. Mikasa remembered seeing Connie and Sasha clutched to one another, bawling in the center of the battlefield, as Jean shouted at them to stop in a frantic blend of exasperation and panic. Driving the thunderspears through Reiner’s skull had broken their hearts.  


Kind and compassionate Sasha, who made no secret of her terror, but threw herself before enemies anyways. Over the years, as they had grown up alongside each other, Mikasa saw the determination with which she held herself, the dignity she extended when it mattered (which was never, of course, at the cost of an unsated appetite), the heart and courage and sacrifice she put forth for others even as she was shaking in her boots. She saw a young woman desperate to prove herself, yearning to make her family and her village proud, in the same way so many of them were. She watched as Sasha became who she had always wanted to be.  


Darting through the woods in pursuit of the dancing titan years before, Mikasa had proclaimed in a hotheaded and ruthless folly that she had decided which lives mattered to her, and she had made that decision six years ago.  


Kind and compassionate Sasha, who changed her mind.  


* * *

The instant the words left Jean’s lips, she felt her stomach plummet to the floor. He didn’t have to say much else—she’d known him for years, after all, and the deep, devastated crease in his brow told her all she needed to know. His voice shook, paused as he stumbled over the sentence, trying his best to maintain composure. Armin bristled beside her, and she felt her feet lunge forward of their own accord. The narrow iron door suddenly seemed so far away as they charged for it, hearts throbbing in their throats, afraid of what lay on the other side.  


_“This girl shot Sasha.”_  


Mikasa wanted to believe she had misheard. As she shoved the door open, Connie’s tearstained face told her that she hadn’t.  


He slouched over a crumpled figure wrapped in a tourniquet. A deep crimson flower blossomed across the white bandages, petals unfurling ever steadily, even as frenzied and bloodstained hands pushed against the bleeding. A soft, gurgling coughing sound. The body shook weakly with hemorrhage, and—oh god, no, it couldn’t be Sasha, she looked so _small_ , so fragile and helpless—and the room was spinning, the blood battering the insides of her skull as she dropped to her knees. With that familiar sickening despair crushing her chest, lungs capsizing and caving in, she dared to look up at her face. To make it true.  


This couldn’t be the soldier she had just seen hours before the mission, laughing and scarfing down two soldiers’ helpings worth of dinner, hearty and capable and strong. This couldn’t be the soldier she had seen cackling and joking with her comrades moments before, resting her chin on Connie’s arm, at peace. Mikasa had barely glanced her way—why would she? Eren had returned, after months of no contact, in a brilliant display of ruthless civilian slaughter that put everyone’s lives on the island at stake—and may very well be the one thing that could save all those lives. Her heart swelled and shattered as she saw her own family, someone she loved and had sworn to protect unconditionally, standing on that mountain of rubble and children’s corpses. Necessary sacrifice. Unnecessary, too. In the back of the airship, the commander awaited, along with their sworn nemesis turned greatest advantage. They had just started a world war, for Sina’s sake. And Sasha and Jean and all of the rest of her friends, they were background noise, because they were on the airship, they were safe, Sasha was _safe_ , it couldn’t be her—  


But it was.  


Mikasa couldn’t breathe.  


Sasha’s head bobbed slightly—her eyes had gone dull, almost unresponsive, but she craned her face toward Mikasa. She opened and closed her cherry-stained lips, mouthing something, but the only sounds that came out through a throatful of blood were wet, burbling coughs. Mikasa clasped a hand to her face, hands shaking against the clammy skin of her cheek—she was so cold, so pitifully cold and weak and losing blood fast, and Mikasa swallowed around the thick lump in her throat.  


“Sasha. Sasha, hey, shh,” she murmured, wiping the sweat from Sasha’s forehead. “It’s alright, you’re alright, hey, just hang on. We’re going home. It’s okay. Come on Sasha, please…”  


She heard her own voice cracking as the lump in her throat grew tighter. Sasha wasn’t going to make it home.  


The brunette’s fingers twitched, as if she was reaching for something, and Mikasa’s hand grasped blindly for hers, settling onto her wrist. With tears prickling and blurring her vision, her eyes drifted towards her own hand, slender fingers wrapped around Sasha’s arm. And all of a sudden, it felt like years had passed since the last time she had brushed her fingers along the smooth underside of that arm, delicately tracing the bruises, swollen from the sharp thwack of the bow’s string against her skin. Since that chestnut hair had spilled across her pillow, tickled her chin as she buried her face in it. It spilled across the filthy floor boards now, soaking up and sopping with her own blood, gleaming auburn for all the wrong reasons—and oh god, Sasha deserved so much better than this—towering above titans, felling gods of death—all to end up gracelessly choking on her own blood, at the hands of a child—  


The other soldiers surrounding her leaned back, and the cabin of the airship suddenly seemed so cavernous and empty as everyone receded away from them. The hands compressing the blood loss slipped away, the concerned faces eager to help withdrew, and Mikasa barely comprehended what was going on until she felt it, in the arm that she had gripped so tightly. There was no pulse.  


She felt herself unravel.  


This wasn’t the resigned and solemn agony she braved when she thought she had lost Eren—the reckless and heartbroken abandon she had thrown herself into, the loss and pain that had nearly cost Mikasa her own life, before she remembered what Eren would have wanted. It wasn’t the pain of finding out that someone she loved so dearly was already gone. It also wasn’t the bitter and defeated misery that sunk deep into her bones when she had nearly lost Armin—the lesson she had to learn, briny tears pouring down her cheeks and Hange’s strong arms restraining her, as the uncontrollable rage drained from her body, leaving little more than a husk, and she lowered her blades. It wasn’t the caged-beast fear and anger of seeing someone she loved dying, and knowing there was an answer, a way out; nor was it suffering through that person’s necessary sacrifice, even as every fiber of her being rioted against it.  


Helpless. This was the empty helplessness she’d felt as a child no more than nine, watching her father drop to the floor. This was the weakness and terror she felt as she saw the axe hack through her mother’s throat and watched her turn, blood bursting from the wound and spattering over the floorboards, before she crumpled into herself. Gruesome and without reason and utterly unsolvable, unpreventable. Nothing she could do besides shiver there, powerless, hopeless, as the people she loved were taken from her.  


_“Sasha, don’t sleep.”_  


Mikasa and Armin shook and sobbed and screamed her name, and the airship stayed its course.  


* * *

Strike. Swivel, kick. Dip, parry forwards, strike again. It was methodical, purposeful, but never predictable, the way she moved.  


The moon hung swollen and heavy against the velvet sky, its pale light spilling over the courtyard and silhouetting the lone figure standing there. Against the bluish-black drapes of nighttime that cloaked her surroundings, the stark porcelain of her figure shone all the more brilliantly; her body nearly glowed in the light, each bead of sweat on her skin twinkling like a pearl, as she diligently practiced and trained. Her muscles, defined sharply by the silver crescents of light, rippled with each fluid motion, shifted beneath the smoothness of her marble flesh. Every movement foretold a distinct liquid strength, a smooth but solid capability that made her lethal; an intricate grace nearly feline, a brute strength nearly lupine.  


Sasha had seen this before. From behind a docked arrow, breath caught in her throat, she had seen this lithe and focused prowl as she had followed a mountain wildcat closely with her aim. She had seen haunches raised in wait, trembling with the sheer force it took to constrain such raw power. She witnessed firsthand the intensity of the strike. The way those taut muscles twisted like cords of steel, the way the cat’s smooth and shiny coat flowed over them like fresh water smoothing across river stones in a babbling creek. Unmatched prowess.  


Soldiers didn’t move like this, but hunters did.  


Sasha swallowed, moving one hand to grasp idly at her own wrist, feeling her own quickened pulse. She felt nervous, and oddly invasive. True, she had wandered here trying to find Mikasa to begin with, but she hadn’t expected… well, this.  


Although she had nestled into her cot and nodded off hours earlier, she was woken by a heavy thump and a soft curse. Sasha had peeled open her drowsy lids just in time to catch her bunkmate rising from a crouch, having jumped from the top bed, and walking wordlessly toward the door. Rubbing a bleary eye, Sasha sat up. She wasn’t sure why she was so curious, much less why she felt compelled to follow. It was strange, she supposed, that a trainee at the top of the class with nearly perfect marks was violating curfew, but that wasn’t what sparked her interest. Was something wrong? Or perhaps it riled up a mischievous spirit of rumor in her. Was this admirable soldier breaking curfew to go meet someone? Whether concern or intrigue acted as the impetus, it didn’t matter much. She still found herself swinging her legs over the edge of her bunk, tugging on her boots, awkwardly stuffing the loose fabric of her pant legs down inside of them, and shuffling as quietly as she could out of the dorms. The shuffle really became more of a waddle once she noticed, with a wince, how much the nightclothes rustled, but no one stirred. Ymir’s rumbling, gravelly snores from across the room did more than enough to drown out her light tread.  


Abruptly, just as she reached the doorway, the loud creak of springs and the swish of sheets caught her ears. She flinched froze, the hairs on her arm prickling. When the noise intermittently continued, the squeaking of the mattress punctuated by the sound of someone tossing about, she released a melancholy sigh. One of her comrades must just have been seized with a nightmare. Was it Annie, this time? Sasha could swear that she had the bunk directly above Mina’s, but she couldn’t make anything out in the dark. Her expression fell… she remembered Annie mentioned having been from a small southern village, deep within Wall Maria.  


The horrors that plagued her dreams were things that Sasha could never hope to imagine, but not for the reasons Sasha believed.  


With softly knitted brows, she nudged the door open a crack, moonbeams spilling across the wooden floor, and slipped out into the night. The training camp was different at this hour, sapped of sunlit hues, drained of the day’s laughter and shouts and resonating salutes. Empty, almost ethereal. Part of her felt serene in this ghostly nocturnal world; perhaps it wasn’t that surprising, coming from someone who had spent the majority of her life in isolation, wandering alone on nights like these. Prior to the fall of Maria, it had just been her and her father: hunting alongside each other in the forest, holed up in in the homely cabin, plucking produce from a meager garden. Occasionally riding down into the market of Dauper Village, where they knew everyone by name, to sell game during seasons when the hunts went particularly well. She was ill-prepared for the bustling crowds of Wall Rose’s most populous cities, for fast-moving city folk, all of them speaking so quickly and crisply, clear as a flower stem being snipped. She saw more people in her first day of military training then she believed she had seen in all the years of her life.  


Yet now, this emptiness made a quiet piece of her grow restless, anxious. After living in a world where humanity was always dangling on the edge of extinction, something didn’t sit right with her about being the only wandering soul in an area usually so stuffed with lively bodies.  


But she wasn’t alone.  


Soft grunts echoed through the campground, quiet sounds that somehow rang out like gunshots in this stagnant silence. The heels of Sasha’s boots padded softly against the dirt as she followed the sound. As she rounded the corner to the courtyard, she saw her.  


A part of her felt like she had no right to watch her, but it was swiftly smothered by curiosity. It wasn’t the situation itself that gave her cause to feel this way—she had seen Mikasa practicing hundreds of times, whether honing her strength at the expense of a military-issue punching bag or sparring in exercises with other recruits. She wasn’t particularly shocked to see her training after-hours, either; that muscle didn’t build itself, after all. It wasn’t even the isolated atmosphere that lent an air of intimacy to the scene, that made her own intrusion feel so terribly profligate. The longer she watched, buried beneath that usual serious countenance, shadows shifted and stirred in her eyes. It was something different than the grave acceptance that flickered across her expression sometimes. A face she would occasionally make during some more grisly lectures they’d had about the titans, or during hand-to-hand combat lessons, when she fixated a little too intensely on the shape of the small wooden blade in Eren’s hand. A face she made whenever she was called upon to _remember_.  


This was something else, Sasha recognized. Guilt. Responsibility. Frustration and anger that almost rivaled Eren’s, burning out with every thrust of her hands. And it intrigued Sasha as much as it terrified her. Her body crackled and snapped with emotive energy, and she could see it. In the crystalline drop of sweat that rolled down her throat as she swallowed. In the way every muscle in her abdomen would clench, roll, twist as she swung her fist forwards. In the way her feet would drift almost weightlessly over the dirt of the field, barely bouncing on toes to increase her stamina.  


Sasha was so entranced with those feet that she almost missed what it meant when they skidded to a halt. Her heels dug into the ground and dragged up a cloud of dust, which drifted like powdered sugar and caught, glowing, in an iridescent moonbeam.  


In that instant, finally noticed, Sasha felt a carmine blush bubble up in her cheeks, so hot she could swear her blood was boiling. She slowly raked her eyes up Mikasa’s figure to meet that inquisitive gaze, and gulped around the hammering heartbeat in his throat. However, there was nothing accusatory about the look.  


“Sasha?” she began, eyebrows knotting with something akin to worry. Her onyx hair stuck glossy and wet to her sweaty neck like an oil spill, and not a strand of it blew out of place in the light breeze. “Is something wrong?”  


She shook her head quickly (perhaps a little too quickly), a few stray strands of mousy brown bedhead slipping off her shoulders. Mikasa visibly relaxed.  


Any abnormality or aberrance, any cause for concern, and the gears in her head were already whirring, mapping the quickest route to Eren and Armin, finding the swiftest way out. Swallowing down the reflex, she began to unwrap the bandages from her palms with a sigh, and Sasha hadn’t wanted Mikasa to stop for her, didn’t mean to interrupt her training. She was struggling to string this sentiment into a sentence when Mikasa spoke up again.  


“What are you doing up?” She asked absentmindedly, stuffing the bandages into her bag. Perhaps she had almost been finished with her practice, anyways. Before Sasha could answer, a thought seemed to strike Mikasa, and she lifted one delicate brow. “You aren’t trying to sneak smoked meats out of Shadis’ office again, are you?”  


“What? No!” she protested indignantly, a flush crawling up the nape of her neck. Had Mikasa said “again”? Her eyes widened as her voice fell to whisper. “…Did Christa tell you about that?”  


“No,” Mikasa said, the ghost of a smile on her lips.  


The blush had spread and Sasha’s face was redder than a vine-ripe tomato, and it only seemed to amuse Mikasa more. With a start, Sasha realized this may be the first time she had really talked with Mikasa like this. The dark-haired girl mainly kept to herself, when she wasn’t rushing to Eren’s defense (oftentimes to Eren’s dismay). Genuinely, she seemed just as frustrated with his antics as anyone else, if not more so, due to the care she harbored for him. Despite having her as a bunkmate, Sasha didn’t think she had ever held a conversation this long with her before. Given how often she would tease Sasha with her dinner rolls, she had figured the girl must have had a sense of humor, but it was still a surprise to see it so barely suppressed. Was it just the hot adrenaline coursing through her veins, the tired satiation of a finished work-out, which had caused a shift in her mood?  


Mikasa sat down, wiping the sweat from the nape of her neck with a towel, and beckoned Sasha over to the bench to sit with her. Sasha complied, still somewhat dazed by the easiness of the atmosphere.  


“…Why are you up, Mikasa? Do you do this every night?” she finally asked after a pause, hoping she wasn’t overstepping boundaries.  


“Not every night,” she started, then closed her eyes. She was still a little out of breath. Behind those lids, she saw the carnage and chaos of a world without walls, and watched her city become a slaughterhouse. She saw the terror and anguish in a mother’s bulging, bloodshot eyes as she begged her ten-year-old son to leave her side and run for his life. She remembered that mother’s words only a few hours before, as she implored her to stay by Eren’s side, to watch out for and protect one another, no matter what.  


“I made a promise to someone, once.”  


A promise that was getting harder to keep, given their choice of career. The sliver of hope she had in the first few weeks, when Eren had struggled with the faulty maneuvering gear he’d been given, had been all but extinguished now. No matter how hard he fell or how often he failed, that passion, that thirst for vengeance, kept him moving. He wouldn’t stop until he had killed them all. Armin wouldn’t stop until they had gone beyond the wall. It was real now, for all of them.  


A few hours of sleep a night were negligible in exchange for her strength. Mikasa could protect all of them. She would never be helpless again.  


* * *

Her lips were soft, curling to nip and suck at Mikasa’s calla-white thighs. The cool air nipped fresh at her exposed skin, and she gripped fistfuls of grass with her hands as she trembled with anticipation. She squirmed slightly as Sasha’s lips trailed lower, planting gossamer-light kisses onto flesh riddled with goosebumps. She couldn’t help moving about, her entire body host to some bizarre nervous thrill. Hot jolts of pleasure sluiced down her spine from the excitement alone, and she felt breathless and invigorated and vulnerable. Even with this overwhelming torrent of thought roiling in her mind, it was still hard to ignore how ridiculously she felt she was displayed—Sasha couldn’t wait long enough to take off her boots and gear, and had snapped the leg harnesses free before tugging her pants down to bunch around her knees. Sasha’s head had wormed its way between her thighs, Mikasa prying them open as much as she could manage as she laid back on the coarse grass. Her white shirt was fanned out beneath her, unbuttoned and splayed open, forming frail, papery wings. She remembered how Sasha had been transfixed—hazel eyes thirstily lapping up every contour and crevice and crease, every swell and dip of chiseled muscle, the way a flame laps at the wick of a candle. Admittedly, she had almost brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh, because it was something Sasha had probably seen every day in the showers and the barracks for the better part of the last three years, but that didn’t seem to stultify her fixation whatsoever.  


Mikasa was torn from her thoughts when she felt warm lips press firmly between her legs, and she thrust up slightly, tingles branching down her legs, at finally, _finally_ feeling that pressure. Hesitantly, Sasha’s tongue slid from her mouth to lick along Mikasa’s lips, hot and wet. With a lurch, Mikasa’s thighs clapped together, clamping around Sasha’s head, and she shuddered and groaned with how sensitive she was to the touch. Rocking her hips gently into Sasha’s movements, as the other girl licked and lapped between her thighs, she let the back of her head smack onto the ground beneath her, grinding it into the dirt. Softly, Sasha dragged her tongue, rough with taste buds, over her sensitive clit, and Mikasa nearly yelped. She arched weakly into and away from the overwhelming sensation, from those greedy lips and eager tongue slipping wetly over her as she trembled.  


Really, it should have gone without saying, but the girl could _eat_.  


It was a new feeling Mikasa was completely unprepared for, and she could already feel the stirrings of warmth swelling pleasurably at her core. The way Sasha sucked gently at her clit, the laving of that hot tongue, the divine heat and friction slipping over her that made her knees buckle—it was all too much, and she twisted one boot heel in the dirt as she clawed at the ground beneath her, stomach flexing and chest heaving and muscles rioting. The heel in the dirt scraped uselessly at the ground as she tried to scoot away, the feeling so raw and intense and delicious that it was almost excruciating—and she felt it tightening and rising deep in her gut, her body clenching and tensing as it began to ripple through her—and that wet mouth wasn’t stopping, tasting and licking and delving deeper—  


With a brusque shout that tapered off into loud and throaty moan, Mikasa thrust up against Sasha’s mouth and came, shivers wracking her body and relief coursing through her veins. She felt fingers curl into her thighs, squeezing knuckle-white, as she shuddered and rolled her hips and reveled in the feeling. With her legs clasped tightly together, her body twitching and her lips parted, she rode out her orgasm, moaning softly. Sasha continued as Mikasa came down slowly, until the sensation became too much. Sasha patted her thighs and Mikasa tried as best she could to relax them, shivering when the warmth of Sasha’s cheeks left her sweaty thighs. Her legs flopped boneless to the ground once Sasha was out of the way, and she peeled her eyelids open, glancing over.  


Sasha’s lips were red and her eyes glittered something fierce and her cheeks were dusted rose from exertion, and she was so beautiful. The girl wiped her chin and reached up to tighten her ponytail—and really, with all the baby hair askew and the lopsided strands spilling out, there was no saving that ponytail. A breathless smile softened her features, and she broke the silence.  


“I thought you were actually gonna crush my skull,” the words tumbled out in one breath, sounding both exhilarated and kind of genuinely frightened, but cheerful nevertheless, because _whoa_ , head smashed by Mikasa Ackerman’s thighs, what a way to go.  


Mikasa lolled her head back to look at the stars and snorted. In hindsight, she probably should watch her own strength. Swiveling her head back to stare at Sasha, she reached for her arm. Pulling her in closer, she breathlessly murmured, “Come here.”  


She bundled Sasha into a kiss, feeling that chestnut hair draped around her and tickling her jaw. Their lips opened, and the kiss was all tangled tongues and shared breath. Mikasa could taste herself on Sasha’s lips, salty and warm and wonderful, and it whet her appetite all the more. Their lips stayed locked, but her shaky fingers fumbled for Sasha’s belts. Disentangling the straps, she pulled the harness down and moved to unbutton Sasha’s jeans, before deciding that she’d rather do things more properly this time.  


“Take these off,” she mumbled against Sasha’s mouth as she patted the side of her boot.  


She didn’t have to be asked twice. Sasha’s rear fell back onto the ground and she hoisted her legs in the air, struggling with one boot while Mikasa yanked on the other. In the end, they were successful, and Sasha peeled off her lower garments as well, until she was dawdling there completely bare from the waist down. She lowered her head almost demurely, heat rising in her cheeks, but Mikasa beckoned her closer, before any juvenile feelings of awkwardness could arise. The brunette leaned down and pressed her lips sweetly to the other girl’s. Mikasa’s hands gently smoothed down her back toward her hips, kneading and thumbing the soft flesh there. Her grip, soothing and strong, pulled gently at those hips, bringing them in closer as they kissed, until Sasha was hunched over with her knees at Mikasa’s chest. She broke the kiss in confusion, but when she felt Mikasa’s fingers at the small of her back, still drawing her in closer to Mikasa’s face, she realized what the other girl wanted. She flushed a nervous crimson and hesitated. It was somewhat embarrassing in its own right, but wouldn’t sitting on Mikasa’s face hurt her?  


She shook the latter concern from her mind easily. No, the other girl could probably bench-press her entire body with just her jaw, and she knew it.  


Tentatively, she planted her knees on either side of Mikasa’s head and lowered herself. She gasped when the dark-haired girl’s hands flew up to clasp her thighs and pull her down closer, and any trace of restraint she held melted away the moment that tongue slicked across her lips. Her toes curled and thrills coursed down her spine, and she seemed blissfully unaware of all else—at the very least, Mikasa was certain that she wasn’t quite aware of how unabashedly and loudly she was moaning. It likely wasn’t ideal, and any hope of remaining stealthy on their night’s watch had gone out the window, but the most Mikasa could do was weakly swat at Sasha’s breasts in hopes she quieted down. She didn’t.  


With a gleeful thrumming in her chest, Mikasa realized she couldn’t bring herself to care.  


* * *

“I swear I have more fuzz on my lip than Jean does,” Sasha japed, pulling a strand of hair between her nose and mouth and scrunching up her lips, so that it dangled there like a mustache. It fell free as she continued, “Doesn’t stop him from trying to trim and preen it, Connie says.”  


She pulled her knees up against her chest as she leaned against the other girl. They hadn’t moved from the bench where they’d sat down, and had spent the rest of the night talking. Her bare arm rested against the other girl’s, and the sheen of sweat on Mikasa’s skin was refreshing and cool against Sasha’s own. The work out had been hours ago, and the dark-haired girl still hadn’t toweled off or shrugged on a shirt, but the chill didn’t seem to bother her.  


“I hope Jean grows a beard someday,” Sasha breathed out a chuckle, eyes fond, as she leaned a cheek against her knee. “I’d love to tease him about it.”  


“I’m not sure he’d take kindly to that,” Mikasa said good-naturedly, eyebrows raised. His short fuse when it came to Eren seemed ample proof of how well he took to teasing, but then again, Eren was quite the incendiary.  


“I’m sure he would if it came from you,” Sasha mused, risking a glance up toward Mikasa’s face. “He’s head over heels, you know.”  


If the news surprised Mikasa, she didn’t show it. She shrugged her shoulders disinterestedly, as if it had no bearing on her.  


“Jean and I were talking with Armin the other day, and he was telling stories about home,” Sasha started, and if Mikasa’s heart twinged at the mention of Shiganshina, she didn't react. “Neither Jean or I had ever been to Maria, so we wanted to know. He said he lost all of his books in the fall. They’re some of the things he misses the most… Do you know what an ocean is?”  


“Mm,” Mikasa nodded, although she didn’t really know any more than Armin had told her. She hadn’t seen those picture books in so long that the images had faded from her mind.  


“I think he mentioned it by mistake when he was talking about the books, because he changed the subject right after. What is it? Did you have one in Shiganshina?”  


Mikasa shook her head. “There aren’t any here.” She hesitated, as if weighing the risk, before deciding it couldn’t really cause any harm. “It’s beyond the wall.”  


Sasha perked up in shock, eyes wide. “I didn’t know they had books about beyond the wall, besides what’s in the history books. Is it from the Survey Corps’ logs?”  


“No, it’s older than that… I’m not sure how old.” Her voice was soft as she recollected. “The other children all called him a heretic. We didn’t know it when we were younger, but books like that are contraband. I think he tries to keep it to himself, now.”  


Sasha seemed at a loss for words, brows creased and heavy with the weight of what she had been told. She hardly seemed ready to rat them out to the wall cultists, at the very least, so that was something. On the contrary, she looked as crestfallen as she did confused.  


Clearing her throat, Mikasa decided to answer her first question. “It’s a body of water. It’s supposed to be so big that it stretches from one end of the horizon to the next.”  


“Like… a lake?” she questioned, puzzled.  


“No, bigger than that. It’s supposed to stretch for miles and miles. It’s bigger than all the land inside the walls… Oh, and he says it’s full of salt.”  


Still trying to wrap her head around it, she blinked and asked, “Is it… real?”  


“Yeah,” Mikasa answered without hesitation. She had never really questioned it, but Armin had told her so, and had he ever been wrong before? The words sounded childishly naïve even to her, but in spite of that, she still mumbled, “The three of us are going there, someday.”  


“…Can you swim in it?” she asked after a few moments of quiet. She was smiling now, and Mikasa’s chest felt lighter.  


She grunted in assent and nodded again. “You don’t even have to swim. There’s so much salt that you float.”  


Sasha beamed. “Definitely beats a lake, then.”  


She slouched back against Mikasa, and that was that. “I miss swimming. There were a lot of mountain creeks up past my cabin. It feels like it’s been so long.”  


“There’s a lake not far from here,” Mikasa said, unsure herself if she was proposing a venture there. She heard Sasha yawn softly. “Reiner and Bertholdt took Eren and Armin to see it one night. Near that stretch of farmland to the north.”  


“Mm, you don’t swim in lakes,” she muttered drowsily. “…’specially not by farms.”  


“Why not?”  


“Because… ‘t’s where all the horse and cow shit gets washed into,” Sasha’s voice was fading.  


“Oh,” Mikasa mumbled, blinking a few times as she thought back to all the lakes she had splashed through in her childhood. “Oops.”  


Her shoulder shook as Sasha laughed against her, and she realized how limply the other girl was sprawled out on the bench.  


“Sasha, don’t nod off.” She lightly patted the cheek that wasn’t pressed in the crook of her shoulder. Looking past the rooftops of the trainee quarters, she squinted at where the sky was already lightening. “We should get back before roll call.”  


Sasha nodded in understanding, moving from her slump on Mikasa’s shoulder and reaching up to stretch. Both girls stood from the bench and headed back toward the sleeping quarters. The brunette wondered briefly if the other didn’t plan on getting a shower, but what was the point, if they’d be up running laps in just a few hours?  


“I have no idea how you do this every night,” Sasha bemoaned somewhat pitifully, covering her mouth to suppress another yawn.  


“Not every night,” Mikasa corrected again. “I just do it when I can’t sleep anyways.”  


She smiled almost imperceptibly, before breathing out a laugh and shaking her head. “Actually, Sasha… I’m up because of you.”  


The other girl stopped in her tracks. She felt her heart fluttering like a bird trapped in the cage of her ribs. What did she mean by that?  


“…Me?”  


It was a simple comment, but Sasha’s heart was in her throat. She couldn’t help the coy blush that rose to her cheeks, because Mikasa had been thinking about her, of all people—and why did that make her so exuberant to hear?  


“Yeah,” she smiled, and Sasha’s heart lifted right out of her chest… until Mikasa continued.  


“…You fart in your sleep. It’s so loud that it practically shakes the bedframe.”  


Really, Sasha didn’t know what else she had expected.  


* * *

Sunshine kissed the rosy tangle of limbs beneath the tree. Wreaths of morning fog hung low and thick, and bejeweled grass blades sparkled in the pale light. They were caged in so closely by mountains that Wall Rose was hidden, and when Mikasa opened her eyes to the sun cresting over the peaks, she could pretend for an instant that there were no walls at all—just canary yellow and cornflower blue and rolling green hills, as far as the eye could see. She would remember that sunrise, she thought to herself. Just as she would remember the roses and cream body nestled against her own, and the chill of the fresh dew against her skin, and the tickle of sun-kissed auburn hair against her lips, and the feel of an arm dappled and smudged with bruises.  


Unfortunately, she would remember the next moments that unfolded just as well, when the surge of awareness smacked into her harder than a titan’s palm. A wave of terror welled up inside her—because _shit_ , they had spent the last couple hours of their night’s watch sleeping and at least one hour fucking—if something had happened to Eren she would never forgive herself—and was quelled just as quickly as she whipped her head toward the house. Nothing was out of place, and Jean and Armin looked calm as ever from afar as they ambled up the slope. This realization, of course, only stirred up a new rush of panic in her, because _Jean and Armin were heading right for them_. Mikasa felt she could only partially be blamed for the chaos that ensued, landing a hard slap on Sasha’s rear to wake her and lunging to her feet—only to forget that her pants were still bunched at the knees, and slamming to the ground face-first and ass-up. In the hurried scramble and havoc that followed, with belts snagged and tangled and shirts buttoned askew and Sasha crawling around pantless in pursuit of socks while Mikasa urged her to at least put the goddamn jeans on first, they had almost reached a state of sartorial normalcy when Armin’s head poked over the edge of the hill.  


Thank goodness it had been Armin, Mikasa had mused to herself, even as her best friend’s jaw dropped open and he blushed down to his toes once he understood. Sasha was still buckling the belts at the front of her jeans—even though the leg harness was on backwards—and she grit her teeth in fear as she snapped her head up to meet Armin’s gaze, lopsided ponytail swishing with the movement, eyes pleading. Armin’s eyes slid back to Mikasa’s. She stared at him with a wide-eyed and dire intensity.  


All at once, he nodded firmly, brows set in determination and expression steely, as if they had an unspoken agreement. Jean finally caught up to him on the slope, grumbling about the climb, and Armin, brows knit with remorse, smacked his hands to Jean's chest with a powerful thwack, and sent him tumbling back down the moutainside. Armin sprinted down after him as he rolled away, shouting a slew of apologies, and _wow_ , Mikasa hadn’t really expected that one. Neither had Sasha apparently, absolutely agape and silhouetted by sunrise.  


It really was the little things in life, Mikasa supposed.  


* * *

“I reckon that my dad would love you,” Sasha murmurs one day, offhanded and whimsical. All of her focus was devoted to unclasping the buckles of Mikasa’s maneuvering gear near the small of her back, and so it was mumbled out thoughtlessly, the way someone may remark on the weather to themselves, or nod along to conversation they hadn’t heard a word of. Mikasa froze, letting Sasha’s nimble fingers pry the belts loose. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t do it herself—after so many years, it was a second reflex, and she could strap herself in and out of a web of a leather belts in a heartbeat. Nevertheless, it was hard to reach the back, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had refused Sasha’s help.  


After a moment or two, Sasha had finished, and she walked around to face Mikasa as she shrugged out of the upper harness.  


“Fearless,” she started, as Mikasa folded her harnesses on the bed.  


“Not really,” Mikasa glanced up, brushing some raven strands of hair out of her face. Sasha smiled in understanding.  


“Brave,” she corrected, stepping closer with a fond expression. “Determined. Proper soldier, top of the class. Saving lives. Putting your own life last.”  


The words she used, Mikasa realized, were likely exactly what her father had always expected of her. And they were exactly what he’d gotten, when she’d proved herself after Ragako village had been destroyed. The Ackerman girl remembered when Sasha had said as much, back when all of them were gathered round in the trainee mess hall—it was clear her father must have loved her dearly, but the fall of Maria had tautened a strain on everyone’s relationships, and he was apprehensive about the kind of person he thought his daughter would become: a coward and a glutton. Selfish and without an ounce of sympathy for the refugees of Wall Maria, so terrified of people and stuck in her ways that she’d end up holed up in that forest until the day she died. It hadn’t been the case of course, and he couldn’t have been more proud. She was all he had hoped for. There was no bitterness or envy in her tone as she described Mikasa now, with those phrases guaranteed to win her father’s admiration. Just an earnest hopefulness.  


“Selfish. Gloomy. Insubordinate. Brat,” Mikasa prattled off, before shrugging with a slight smile. “Captain’s words, not mine.”  


The brunette’s face split into a grin at the reminder of their old squad leader. She chuckled as Mikasa continued, “The cadet ranking and graduation logs speak well of me, sure, but if you really wanted to blow him away, you’d show him Levi’s personal notes.”  


Undeterred, Sasha pressed her hands to the front of Mikasa’s jacket. “He’d love you all the same.”  


Mikasa cupped Sasha’s cheek tenderly. The crisp, butter-yellow sunshine spilled through the shutters, granting Sasha’s hair that auburn luster, and for some reason Mikasa felt her chest swell as if she was on the verge of tears, though she felt content as could be. Sasha had cut her hair off recently—it was still long enough to pull back, but not into the thick ponytail she’d worn for years. This suited her, Mikasa thought.  


“I think I’ll be going back to Dauper village soon, just before the harvest holidays,” Sasha’s voice waned a bit, sounding thinner. “You could come along.”  


_Oh._  


Suddenly, it became clear what Sasha had been nudging the conversation towards all along. This was new territory, and for some reason it made Mikasa’s lungs shallower and knees shakier than the first time she had seen a horizon without a wall. This was wandering out into cold black waters, neither one of them knowing if their feet touched the ground. This was a step towards finally putting a name to this unspoken thing that’d carried on for years, towards molding the clay in their hands and making something together.  


And perhaps it was only a tentative start, gingerly dipping a toe in the water, but Mikasa found herself elated at this gesture. For the first time, she really pondered on all of this, and what it meant. She had spent so long striving to affirm that humanity had a future, she had barely even thought about what she would do with her own future, if she had one.  


She had seen the ocean, in all its crystalline blues and frothing foam; her toes had crunched in gritty sand and her chest had swelled with a lungful of briny air and she had seen the tears sparkling in Armin’s eyes as his dreams came true. She had been able to keep Eren by her side all these years, despite all odds and regardless of what needed to be sacrificed. Surely, whatever future she had, no matter how brief, still involved those two. But maybe it involved Sasha as well. They didn’t date, as soldiers—fraternization was an inevitability, but how did one date under conditions like these? She realized, with a start, that maybe they wouldn’t be soldiers forever.  


The island had been cleared of titans, vast lush and tumbling landscapes free for the taking, ripe with resources. The war was far from over and this was only the tip of the iceberg, but this new world was theirs to brave together, and Mikasa couldn’t resist the temptation to picture it.  


A quaint and comely farm, tucked away in the foothills of the mountains, surrounded by forest. A home—something she hadn’t had, _really_ had, in nearly a decade. She envisioned a humble garden, sprawling away from the side of the house, blooming in a scant patch of sunshine. There would be a nearby bed of dry earth, too, and they could host bonfires in the autumn—and those burning piles of corpses in Trost, of masticated civilians and soldiers alike, they would never have to see those again—the fire lapped at nothing but freshly-chopped cedar, crackling crisply and billowing up in woodsy puffs of smoke. And everyone would gather around boasting and teasing and reminiscing on the days of old, laughing until tears streamed down their faces. Fisting pints of golden ale, they’d raise toasts to making it as far as they had, and twice as many to their friends who hadn’t. Connie played a mean fiddle—Sasha had told her so, said he knew all the Ragako folk songs by heart—and he would pluck and strum out a tune lively enough to have them all on their feet, dancing like the children they had never gotten to be.  


On winter nights, she could see herself brewing a pot of tea—the imported teas from Hizuru had such an earthy and full-bodied richness she had never tasted anywhere before—and stepping carefully over to where Sasha reclined on a sofa. And Sasha would draw a wolf pelt about the both of them, press familiar kisses to her temple as they huddled from the cold, and winter was hard, so hard, because it was the ending of things—and thirteen years were coming to an end and they both knew it, and Sasha held her tighter than she ever had before.  


Years later, on a sweltering summer day, Mikasa would stand with her eyes closed, the sun so bright it painted the backs of her eyelids hot scarlet, and slouch back against a tree stump, arms burning from chopping wood. She’d wipe the sparkling sweat from her brow with an old, threadbare swath of dulling red fabric, which she swore smelled the same, even after all these years. Chest tight, she would hold it to her cheek, just for a moment or two—until a laugh as crisp and bright as daybreak would startle from her reverie. Eyes fluttering open, she would catch a glimpse of Sasha in the garden, filled out and softer after years of hearty meals and no more military drills, woven basket in arm, a young child propped on her plump hip—she and Mikasa had both always wanted a family, after all. Sasha would meet her eyes, the apples of her cheeks sunburnt pink and glowing, and she would smile warmly enough to flush the wintery ache right out of her, like the first melt of spring.  


They would live on, longer than they had ever imagined, longer than either of them ever thought they had the right to. Faces etched with smile lines, holding each other’s wizened hands in a world finally at peace.  


She didn’t say a word of this to Sasha, of course.  


“Yeah, sure,” she settled on instead. “I’ll go.”  


Sasha’s arms were flung around her neck before the second word had even left her lips.  


* * *

She sat with her knees drawn to her chest, leaning against the cold stone. Back to back.  


Sasha’s father had sent word to the commander that he would be arriving in the coming days; he had missed the military funeral that commenced once they had landed. Mikasa didn’t want to see him, whether broken-hearted at her loss or proud of her sacrifice. She had hardly talked to anyone since the air ship had touched ground. An immense guilt swallowed her up when she realized she hadn’t said a word to Connie—and she owed him that much, she felt, because god knows how this broke him—but what could she say? What words of consolation could weigh against the end of seven long years, fighting side by side?  


They had braved those seven years together, all of them. They had watched each other harden from children into soldiers, sacrificial lambs ready to pay the price of a century of peace. They had a lifetime’s worth of war drilled into their minds at the battle of Trost, and walked away from the blood-drenched remains of a quaint little town whose name meant “comfort”. They had been victors together, and failures. They had all stood together as they lost the right to call themselves good, as they listened to the wailing and screaming of the men Levi and Hange escorted to the basement, as they killed other people just like them. They had calmed the shaky nerves of their friends who had been prepared to dirty their hands—and had wiped tears and vomit from the faces of their friends who hadn’t. They had unraveled lies and conspiracies and searched ravenously for the truth, even as their world turned against them—and with an earth-shattering crack, they splintered the world they had always known into fragments, again and again. They invented and developed and explored and learned and _understood_. They reached the ocean—and the thousands of people beyond it, just like them. How many people were born and lived and died in those walls without even a taste of what all of them had been able to see? How many lives were sacrificed for them to come as far as they had? Would they have ever been able to peer above the wall without a mountain of bodies beneath their feet to grant them the view?  


They had always been standing on the shoulders of giants, both figuratively and literally.  


The price of progress. It was a heaviness that Mikasa, in all her youth and denial and stupid luck, had had the privilege of ignoring for far too long. Due to the spared lives of those she loved, cheating death again and again, it was something she had shirked, brushed off—maybe even something she had been hiding from. They had all offered up their hearts that night, four long years ago. And that was their promise to keep.  


Whether it left them standing on the shoulders of giants, towering above the world—or six feet under.


End file.
